


a roof, four walls

by WhiteMizerable



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, post MAG 160, the character death is implied but no outright stated, the jonmartin is the focus but they are never named, yes the safehouse is the main character here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:33:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23054011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteMizerable/pseuds/WhiteMizerable
Summary: There is a cottage in Scotland. It sits alone, though it does not comprehend this.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	a roof, four walls

A house has no conscious thought. It is built, is inhabited perhaps, is destroyed. These things happen and then they are no longer happening, and that is the extent of what a house knows. All it retains is glimpses of memories, afterimages, ghosts lingering on wooden floors and in creaking doorways.

  
There is a cottage in Scotland. It sits alone, though it does not comprehend this. It was new, once. It was lived in, loved in, hunted in. It is empty. Its exterior was painted a warm yellow, and is faded and worn down and tattered. Its windows are broken, boarded up with rough-hewn wood, with poorly placed nails. Its doorway stands open, broken hinges on the frame. The bedroom is strewn with debris, the bedframe torn asunder. The table in the kitchen is shattered, and the fridge is toppled, the smell of warm and wet and mold permeating the air. Tiny beams of light that manage to slip through the few cracks in the walls illuminate stillness, interrupted only by the soft scurry of insects, of mice, and catch on dust motes slowly drifting through the air.

  
A house has no concept of time, but it knows that this emptiness was not always present. There were people here, once- it does not know when, but it knows this is the truth. The sunlight catches the dust and reflects soft images, an echo of a faded past, and the house, in its limited capacity, remembers.

  
In the kitchen, a flicker of sound, soft and sad. Two bodies reaching across the table for one another. Another flicker, and the sound is louder, angrier. Something drops onto the floor and shatters, and a divot is carved into the wood. The dust swirls. Two bodies moving together in the small space, pressed close, silent and holding tight, spinning in slow circles beside the table.

  
By the fireplace, something scuttles beneath the ragged, molding couch. There are no imprints of bodies in the sagging cushions, not anymore, but a whisper of movement, and there is a quiet tangle of limbs stretched out across them, and the echo of a rumbling inhale. The thin sunlight casts shadows that look briefly like fire into the empty hearth. Two bodies standing before it, arms moving, voices raised. Two bodies, coming together, holding tight, letting out quiet, quavering sounds.

  
In the bedroom, a memory of soft bare feet in the doorway, lingering. The creak of bedsprings as someone sits up and holds out a hand. The quiet sound of readjustment, before the night fades back into silence. The wet sound of readjustment, before the night fills with whispers, and then, once, maybe, more.

  
A house has no concept of love. It remembers warmth, and presence, and sound, though it does not comprehend them. It remembers quiet words exchanged at the door, and it remembers old blankets being removed from high shelves and draped over a figure on the couch. It remembers the sweet smell of cooking, the rich scent of the fireplace, the sharp tang of being cleaned. It remembers the pinpoint heat of bodies breathing softly together on the floor.

  
A house has no concept of fear. It remembers the change in heat of the sunlight, and the pressure of shattering glass, and the rhythmic knocking of a hammer on nails. It remembers the patter of tears on floorboards and the sounds of two bodies holding close, rocking back and forth, huddled tight. It remembers two bodies, and things being removed from shelves, and booted feet moving between rooms, and quiet, strained murmurs. It remembers two bodies, and then it remembers no bodies.

  
A house has no concept of what is to come. All it knows is the warmth of the sunlight returned, the vibrations of small life within its walls, the tendrils of grass and trees and flowers and mold growing through its cracks. It knows that its roof is sagging, and that its walls are loose, and that the garden outside reaches in. It knows that a small, warm body came inside one night and it knows that small warm body left with several smaller bodies trailing behind it.

  
The dust flickers in the air.

  
A house has no concept of death. There is no death for a house, only an inevitable destruction, and the cottage in Scotland is no different. It holds its ghosts, its flickering memories, and does not worry about what will become of it. Perhaps the roof will cave, or the walls fall in, and the garden will bury it in soft warm earth and leaves. Perhaps more bodies will come, and will repair it, and light fires in its hearth. This does not matter to the house.

  
A house has no conscious thought. But it knows that, once, it held inside its walls two bodies, and those two bodies held each other, and were warm. And for the house, that is enough.

  
And, perhaps, it really is.

**Author's Note:**

> TMA is going to end in tragedy, but the best kind of tragedy is the kind that leaves you hopeful. Not for the main characters, maybe, but for the world.
> 
> Come talk to me on Tumblr at arakni666, if you'd like.


End file.
